Hosted by , contributed by Kyriaki_Vakkou on 15 September 2023
The main challenge addressed by a Portugal school was the lack of digital literacy among the school community. The specific focus was on addressing the isolation and loneliness of the elderly by enabling them to use technology and become more connected with family, friends, and society.
The schools from the cluster Agrupamento de Escolas do Gavião received equipment from the LfE project. A group of students was asked to think about a project that could positively impact their community using the new equipment. After brainstorming, the students chose the theme of isolation and loneliness of older citizens as this challenge was the one they considered with the greatest potential to positively impact the community through the knowledge acquired in ICT. Students contacted two stakeholders in Gavião: the Senior University and the nursing home from Santa Casa da Misericórdia. Both institutions were eager to participate in the project and very helpful in arranging the conditions for students to meet the elderly. The Municipality of Gavião was also involved by ensuring the transportation of senior students to the school and the travel of students to the nursing home. Another stakeholder was the Portuguese state, with the project “Eu Sou Digital” (https://eusoudigital.pt/ ) aimed to digitally empower adults who had never used the internet before. Through their platform, students signed up as digital mentors on the platform and received support materials to pass on the information to the senior students and the elderly from the nursing home, who also signed up to the platform as learners. Students held several sessions with the elderly at the nursing home and with the senior students at their school. For the sessions with the elderly, students took laptops to the nursing home, whereas for the sessions with the senior students they used the newly equipped room. The sessions included the basic digital skills such as browsing on the internet, reading emails, joining social networks, making video-calls.
This practice had a strong impact on both the school and the local community. For the students, it was particularly rewarding to help their elders. The teacher encouraged the students to keep active the relationships they created with the seniors and praised the digital and the communication and interpersonal skills acquired. The project was also good for their self-confidence since they planned and executed the project in an autonomous way. The students felt that their message should inspire others to become agents of change in their communities and therefore decided to communicate the results of the project to other students, at the local level, through a publication on the school's communication networks. This project contributes to the vision of the school cluster, Agrupamento de Escolas de Gavião, of opening the school to the community, to digital and to education for all, hoping to become a meeting point between the population, knowledge and technology, fostering the sharing of experiences and teachings capable of generating active and intervening citizens in solving community challenges.
"Eu sou digital" platform: https://eusoudigital.pt/
Already implemented by the following schools
AE GAVIÃO - EB de Comenda
This practice was implemented by our school!
This practice was implemented by our school!